Template Engine Skill for Claude
Auto-fill document templates with data - mail merge for any format
Install
one command, takes just this skill from the repositorynpx skills add https://github.com/claude-office-skills/skills --skill template-engineThe instruction itself
12 sections, as written by the authorTemplate Engine Skill
Overview
This skill enables template-based document generation - define templates with placeholders, then automatically fill them with data. Works with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and more.
How to Use
- Describe what you want to accomplish
- Provide any required input data or files
- I'll execute the appropriate operations
Example prompts:
- "Mail merge for bulk letters/contracts"
- "Generate personalized reports from data"
- "Create certificates from templates"
- "Auto-fill forms with user data"
Domain Knowledge
Template Syntax (Jinja2-based)
{{ variable }} - Simple substitution
{% for item in list %} - Loop
{% if condition %} - Conditional
{{ date | format_date }} - Filter
Word Template Example
from docxtpl import DocxTemplate
# Create template with placeholders:
# Dear {{ name }},
# Thank you for your order #{{ order_id }}...
def fill_template(template_path: str, data: dict, output_path: str):
doc = DocxTemplate(template_path)
doc.render(data)
doc.save(output_path)
return output_path
# Usage
fill_template(
"templates/order_confirmation.docx",
{
"name": "John Smith",
"order_id": "ORD-12345",
"items": [
{"name": "Product A", "qty": 2, "price": 29.99},
{"name": "Product B", "qty": 1, "price": 49.99}
],
"total": 109.97
},
"output/confirmation_john.docx"
)
Excel Template
from openpyxl import load_workbook
import re
def fill_excel_template(template_path: str, data: dict, output_path: str):
wb = load_workbook(template_path)
ws = wb.active
# Find and replace placeholders like {{name}}
for row in ws.iter_rows():
for cell in row:
if cell.value and isinstance(cell.value, str):
for key, value in data.items():
placeholder = "{{" + key + "}}"
if placeholder in cell.value:
cell.value = cell.value.replace(placeholder, str(value))
wb.save(output_path)
return output_path
Bulk Generation (Mail Merge)
import csv
from pathlib import Path
def mail_merge(template_path: str, data_csv: str, output_dir: str):
"""Generate documents for each row in CSV."""
Path(output_dir).mkdir(exist_ok=True)
with open(data_csv) as f:
reader = csv.DictReader(f)
for i, row in enumerate(reader):
output_path = f"{output_dir}/document_{i+1}.docx"
fill_template(template_path, row, output_path)
print(f"Generated: {output_path}")
# Usage with contacts.csv:
# name,email,company
# John,[email protected],Acme
# Jane,[email protected],Corp
mail_merge(
"templates/welcome_letter.docx",
"data/contacts.csv",
"output/letters"
)
Advanced: Conditional Content
from docxtpl import DocxTemplate
# Template with conditionals:
# {% if vip %}
# Thank you for being a VIP member!
# {% else %}
# Thank you for your purchase.
# {% endif %}
doc = DocxTemplate("template.docx")
doc.render({
"name": "John",
"vip": True,
"discount": 20
})
doc.save("output.docx")
Best Practices
- Use clear placeholder naming ({{client_name}})
- Validate data before rendering
- Handle missing data gracefully
- Keep templates version-controlled
Installation
# Install required dependencies
pip install python-docx openpyxl python-pptx reportlab jinja2
Resources
Other skills for the same job
different authors, same section of the catalogue
Comprehensive document creation, editing, and analysis with support for tracked changes, comments, formatting preservation, and text extraction. When Claude needs to work with professional documents (.docx files) for: (1) Creating new documents, (2) Modifying or editing content, (3) Working with tracked changes, (4) Adding comments, or any other document tasks
Comprehensive PDF manipulation toolkit for extracting text and tables, creating new PDFs, merging/splitting documents, and handling forms. When Claude needs to fill in a PDF form or programmatically process, generate, or analyze PDF documents at scale.
Presentation creation, editing, and analysis. When Claude needs to work with presentations (.pptx files) for: (1) Creating new presentations, (2) Modifying or editing content, (3) Working with layouts, (4) Adding comments or speaker notes, or any other presentation tasks
Create beautiful visual art in .png and .pdf documents using design philosophy. You should use this skill when the user asks to create a poster, piece of art, design, or other static piece. Create original visual designs, never copying existing artists' work to avoid copyright violations.
Use this skill whenever the user wants to do anything with PDF files. This includes reading or extracting text/tables from PDFs, combining or merging multiple PDFs into one, splitting PDFs apart, rotating pages, adding watermarks, creating new PDFs, filling PDF forms, encrypting/decrypting PDFs, extracting images, and OCR on scanned PDFs to make them searchable. If the user mentions a .pdf file or asks to produce one, use this skill.
Use this skill whenever the user wants to create, read, edit, or manipulate Word documents (.docx files). Triggers include: any mention of 'Word doc', 'word document', '.docx', or requests to produce professional documents with formatting like tables of contents, headings, page numbers, or letterheads. Also use when extracting or reorganizing content from .docx files, inserting or replacing images in documents, performing find-and-replace in Word files, working with tracked changes or comments, or converting content into a polished Word document. If the user asks for a 'report', 'memo', 'letter', 'template', or similar deliverable as a Word or .docx file, use this skill. Do NOT use for PDFs, spreadsheets, Google Docs, or general coding tasks unrelated to document generation.
Use this skill any time a .pptx file is involved in any way — as input, output, or both. This includes: creating slide decks, pitch decks, or presentations; reading, parsing, or extracting text from any .pptx file (even if the extracted content will be used elsewhere, like in an email or summary); editing, modifying, or updating existing presentations; combining or splitting slide files; working with templates, layouts, speaker notes, or comments. Trigger whenever the user mentions \"deck,\" \"slides,\" \"presentation,\" or references a .pptx filename, regardless of what they plan to do with the content afterward. If a .pptx file needs to be opened, created, or touched, use this skill.
Create and edit Obsidian Flavored Markdown with wikilinks, embeds, callouts, properties, and other Obsidian-specific syntax. Use when working with .md files in Obsidian, or when the user mentions wikilinks, callouts, frontmatter, tags, embeds, or Obsidian notes.
How to use it
Take claude-office-skills/template-engine from the repository into ~/.claude/skills for personal
use, or into .claude/skills inside a project.
The agent identifies a skill by the name field in its header. Two skills with the
same name cannot sit side by side — one of them will be ignored.
The instructions reference pip.
Without those the skill loads but fails at the first command.